Promises From the Shadows
by The Unsolvable Riddle
Summary: When scars aren't left to heal, the past will only make them bleed...(PG-13 for happy blood time. Includes sprinklings of YamixSeto, and a butterfly.)


I'm wriiiiitiiing a YGO fic.*wanders into the YGO part of FF*  
  
I was just sitting here, reading fics, and I suddenly wanted to write something. If you haven't guessed by now, it's going to be slightly disturbing, angsty, blood, questions religion, but at the same time amazingly calm. I scare myself. I'm thinking of maybe making a whole little series just titled Promises From the Shadows, but with loads of little stories somehow connected (or not). What do you think?  
  
Warnings: PG-13. Barely shounen-ai (probably of a more let's-just-spend- time-together-because-I-wrote-it-like-that). OOC Yami, and strawberry yoghurt. You're a spicy dumpling if you know what the ending line means. (…Sorry.) This laptop is being evil, sorry if it looks weird. Also sorry if it's confusing, it's sort of meant to be.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't Yu-Gi-Oh. Why God, WHY?!

Update: I got the italics and everything working. It should look slightly better now.  
  
Ahem. I hope you enjoy.  


Promises From the Shadows - Butterfly Faith  
  
He hummed an old hymn that he thought he had forgotten, while watching a blue and white butterfly bob in the air, trying to make it to the flower. Even the gentle breeze was throwing it off course.  
  
"Now. Have you been paying attention?"  
  
"Nah."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"The sun makes me sleepy."  
  
He looked up, at the rays of sun that diffused between the leaves. Under the tree, the shade didn't cancel the effects of the summer that always lulled him into a dream-like state.  
  
"That very well may be true, but you're the one who asked for me to teach you." The man sitting beside him just hums a response. His eyes are closed, and his lips are slightly parted, only to let the sound of the old hymn. He could hear the Priests chanting it now.  
  
--  
  
_"Pharaoh! It's a massacre out there! Slaughter, death, blood! The streets are stained red!"_  
  
--  
  
He leaned over, and watched the man as he typed furiously, codes and numbers flashing across the screen. He'd never understand it.  
  
"What's that mean?"  
  
"I'm rebooting it. Have to restart to get my new program to work."  
  
"What does it do?"  
  
"I'm trying to get my new version of Online Duel Monsters up. I'd have to go back to the main building to get it online, but I can still do some more work from here."  
  
"That's nice."  
  
Yami liked parks. They were so serene, and not at all Egypt. Grass instead of endless sand, and trees instead of towering devotions to multiple Gods. The wind that might pick up didn't spread the stinging sand, or make the food unbearable.  
  
Parks weren't red, either.  
  
--  
  
_"Please! Oh Gods, save him…" Knife through the heart. Eyes rolling back. Limp. Pale. Lost to the Underworld.  
  
Death was so predictable.  
_  
--  
  
"Anubis, save their souls, they know not of what they speak." He sang along to the voice that was whispering in his head. "Judge them fair, wise Anubis, send their souls to be devoured, for they are of the darkness."  
  
He only heard the last lingering words above the typing, high and haunting. He turned to his side to see the man staring up at the tree, his head moving back and forth to the ever-changing rhythm. Shrugging to himself, he continued to type.  
  
"Never dying, never screaming, always bleeding." There it was again. He stopped, but the man next to him was just smiling at his thoughts. When he turned his head to smile at him, his eyes flashed from blue to red. The man just blinked, and went back to typing.  
  
--  
  
_What was that new religion that was springing up? Christianity, or something like that. It was causing the Jews to rebel. I remember when an old man warned me of my sins. He told me stories from these many books, tomes, volumes, scriptures and writings.  
  
The man before me, in my arms has one of the marks like in one of the stories he told me. Scarlet in the middle of his forehead. The brother killed his brother, just to gain the favour of his God. That's ridiculous.  
  
I am God._  
  
--  
  
The man shifts around, behind the typing figure. He leans onto the figure behind him, his back supporting his own. The man tenses, before the clicking of fingers on keys continues.  
  
He wonders if he'd make a good piano player. He liked pianos; they were all different types of music combined into one. Ivory, white and black, keys and strings.  
  
"Duel Monsters. It wasn't always called that, was it?" 

"Nah. Shadow Games, Shadow Duels. Monsters that emerged tablets, insane worlds made only of darkness and hate. Life was good."  
  
A chuckle, maybe a sarcastic one.  
  
"Wish I was there."  
  
"You were."  
  
--  
  
_We played all of the time. For money, for blood, for love. Giant creatures that were summoned by your heart. The darker it was, the stronger they were. It was common fact.  
  
Few of us knew that if you never feared Death, you were the ultimate battler, the King of Souls. If you were that, you were a challenge to the Gods themselves. Not a friend like that fool Imhotep.  
  
The King of Souls.  
  
That was who I was.  
  
It's not who I am today. They call me the King of Games. Hah, a worthless title._  
  
--  
  
The butterfly landed on his knee, the same one that had been above him at least an hour ago.  
  
"I was there, was I?"  
  
"I never said it was so. I do believe I'm going insane."  
  
"Then we can be insane together."  
  
"I suppose."  
  
"You were there, you know. I've changed my mind. I'm going to rewrite history."  
  
"That's peachy, but I need to rewrite this system."  
  
"Set was the God of Chaos. People made him that way. I think you're like him."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Yeah. He was considered a good God. Then there came all of this killing his brother and stuff. Many dynasties later, he was the embodiment of evil. Makes you wonder how that sort of stuff happens."  
  
--  
  
_People are so pathetic, if revenge makes them happy.  
  
Where was I? Oh, yes, the blood. He's in my arms, there's blood everywhere. They've killed him, so they've killed me. It doesn't matter what I do anymore, because my soul's with his in the Underworld. Anubis can judge our hearts at the same time._  
  
--  
  
He dug into the bag that was filled with food, taking out a plastic pot of strawberry yoghurt. Finding no spoons, he pouted at the yoghurt for a while, before ripping it open and using his fingers.  
  
"You want anything?" The man turns around, and just raises an eyebrow. The yoghurt is in his right hand, and he has a finger in his mouth. Smiling at him, he continues to 'eat'.  
  
"Nah. I'm too busy to worry about food."  
  
"You're weird."  
  
"I know."  
  
He laughs quietly, before continuing to stare up at the tree.  
  
"You've got a butterfly on your head. It's clashing with the rest of your hair."  
  
"Is it blue with white dots?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Ah. It's been hanging around since we got here."  
  
"I haven't noticed."  
  
"I didn't expect you t-"  
  
--  
  
My vision, it's all gone red. I fall silent, but he doesn't actually notice my sudden lack of conversation. Tap, tap, click, tap, tap. . .his fingers on the keyboard suddenly fade out. I can hear the wind whipping up behind me, like some big dramatic moment in one of those movies that my Light watches.  
  
I move to rub my eyes, to try and fix it, but by hands are red, shining and wet. I put them on my cheeks, and I can feel something wipe against the skin. I taste my finger, and salt overloads my senses. I blink away tears, and my breath hitches.  
  
He turns around again, a strange look on his face, which deepens into concern when he sees the way I'm looking at him.  
  
"W…s…wr…ng? Y…mi?" It's like he's talking through something thick, I can't make out all of the words.  
  
My expression must be horrified, because my heart's pounding, and my brain is racing, my breath is quick and short.  
  
Just to falsely re-assure him, I shake my head, and smile.  
  
"N…th…ing's…wr…ng." He nods slowly, probably still in doubt. I just grin half-heartedly, and look down, at where my very nice yoghurt used to be.  
  
There's a knife. The Eye on the hilt stares up at me, and something whispers in my mind.  
  
_"Pharaoh."_  
  
Shaking my head, my hair brushes against his neck. He reaches up to itch it, but ends up pulling my hair instead. I barely feel such a small amount of pain, when an entire surge of it is shooting up my system.  
  
I squeeze my eyes shut, but this only forces out tears. I try biting my lower lip, or making fists, but nothing works.  
  
_"They killed him, Pharaoh. Not you."_  
  
I remember his face. It was horrifying. It was stained, blood-covered. Slashes across his face, and that one mark, in the middle of his forehead, like an arrow had shot him. Dead navy eyes that would stare at you, judge you, punish you.  
  
His hands, they have two marks across them, but they're like scars that have been reopened. Those didn't come from them, though. They came from me. How do I know this?  
  
I have the exact same marks on my palms.  
  
--  
  
The world is suddenly alive with color again, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Leaning back, he expects the other's body to catch him.  
  
It doesn't.  
  
Falling the short distance to the ground, he doesn't feel when he hits the grass and dirt. Sitting up, he soon figures out what went wrong.  
  
He's fallen asleep, from overworking, endless days staring at a complex screen in white, black and green. He's facing the opposite way, but that proud look is still sketched onto his face, but not as intense.  
  
Smiling, he lies down on his back again, and closes his eyes.  
  
_Red from the slaughter._  
  
--  
  
When the other wakes up, he curses for falling asleep. He looks to the west, where the sun is staining the sky different reds and oranges.  
  
His blue eyes are fully alert now, cold and terse. They soften only slightly when he sees the other, breathing shallow, but rhythmic.  
  
His companion is still lost in dreams, curled up in the grass. One palm is open to the world, a faint white line across it.  
  
The butterfly rests there, never to fly again, it's blue and white wings spread in silent sacrifice.  
  
A voice chants on the breeze, but whether it comes from one of the two, or perhaps the butterfly itself. Or is it from a time, a land, far away and long ago? Perhaps it's a trick of the twilight zephyr.  
  
_"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"_  
  
--


End file.
